As much as I’d love a brain-computer interface for controlling game characters or avatars in virtual worlds, there are still a few years until they’ll be able to analyze our body’s every move and translate them in real time to machines. In the meantime, there are other options. Small and cheap sensors have promise for new machine interfaces that monitor your entire body.

One of my courses this semester is Programming Languages, covering their fundamental histories and differences. Something I direly need to open my eyes and jolt me out of Java fanaticism. I particularly enjoyed playing around with Scheme, a dialect of Lisp. Rather than selfishly leaving the precious resources somewhere in a dark corner, I wrote this article to help get you started with Lisp as well.

If you surf the web to any extent, you’ve inevitably noticed how the bottomless pit that is human stupidity presents itself there. Well, let’s remedy that with a bit of artificial intelligence. The StupidFilter is an absolutely brilliant project that aims to create an open-source filtering mechanism for stupid comments online.

You must have noticed that Leopard made it’s debut a few days back. It isn’t as obviously revolutionary as the first version of OS X, but introduces some nifty improvements. What’s gone relatively unnoticed is that Leopard sports what could be the most impressive practical use of artificial intelligence in OS history. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you. After all, there’s been absolutely no mention of “AI” anywhere … here’s the rundown and the reasons.

A few weeks ago I said you should keep an eye out for Radar Networks‘ work on semantic web applications. Today they’ll finally come out of stealth mode, and over the past 24 hours they’ve unveiled quite a lot of details regarding the nature of their product, Twine. From what’s been disclosed, my excitement appears justified.

I just finished updating the Artificial Creativity page. It now sports an External Links section which I’m sure will provide the enthused with some food for thought. Suggestions for new links are welcomed in the comments of this entry.

Running through the latest robot videos online, I got interested in knowing which ones were the most popular ever. Here are the results from combined searches for robot and robotics, complete with descriptions and links for your brain’s pleasure!

With the complexity of modern AI systems, they sometimes come up with solutions we don’t expect … when we least expect it. Here’s a great video example of this; an AIBO robot is presented with a problem that seems to have only one possible solution. Can you figure out more than one? The AIBO can.

It’s an unfortunate fact that there’s no single, online information source that covers machines that can compose music, invent patentable ideas, or make up stories on their own (yes, all of these exist). So, let’s fix that, shall we?

Today I’m introducing something new on Think Artificial: A Living Article. It’s not exactly a blog entry, wiki nor a static page, but an article that I intend to gradually add to and improve upon. The article is an easy-read overview of artificial creativity, or at least the beginning of one. You can always find it through the main menu, and I’ll be posting notifications whenever it’s significantly updated. Moreover, I invite you to help create it!

A new school semester has dawned and once again I find myself scuttering about to prepare for what’s ahead. It’s funny, nevermind the fact that it happens every year, surprise never fails to rear its horns when I suddenly realize it’s almost winter again. Jump started by the usual strong cup of coffee and inhalation of deadly nicotine, my day is now full of people with bad English accents pimping out Powerpoint slides. And I’m sitting there thinking how the learning process could be different.